Furious rally comes up just short at Missouri

Jan. 30, 2014

Box Score | Quotes

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Vanderbilt’s Jasmine Lister broke a school record Thursday night, but she didn’t feel like celebrating.

Although Lister became the program’s all-time leader in minutes played, that was little consolation on a night when a huge Commodore comeback bid ultimately fell short and No. 16/18 Vanderbilt suffered a 59-54 loss to Missouri on the road.Missouri (14-7, 3-5) snapped a four-game SEC losing skid, while Vanderbilt (16-5, 5-3) lost its second straight.

The Commodores endured an uncharacteristically poor shooting night — finishing 22.2 percent from the floor — but still had a chance to win in the final minute.

Down by 16 early in the second half, the Commodores charged back to cut it to 55-54 after a three-point play by Kylee Smith with 52 seconds left. Vanderbilt then had the ball with a chance to take the lead, but a traveling call gave the ball back to the Tigers.

Missouri hit four straight free throws in the final 16 seconds to win it.

Lister played all 40 minutes of the game, bringing her career total to 4,260 and enabling her to surpass former Vanderbilt record holder Zuzi Klimesova, who played 4,249 minutes in her career from 1999-02.

Christina Foggie scored a team-high 10 points for Vanderbilt, but was 1-of-9 from the floor, including 0-for-6 from 3-point range. No other Vanderbilt player reached double figures, and the Commodores, who are the SEC’s best 3-point shooting team, finished 2-of-16 from long range.

Vanderbilt was 14-of-63 from the floor for the game.

Missouri’s Bri Kulas led all scorers with15 points.

The Commodores endured a frustrating first half — making just 7-of-30 shots (23.3 percent) — and went to the locker room trailing 33-20. Vanderbilt went the final 6:48 of the half without a field goal, a rare stretch for a team that entered the night ranked second in the SEC and seventh in the nation in field goal percentage (48.6).

Lister and Foggie both were just 1-of-4 from the floor in the opening half. Lister’s 3-pointer with 8:55 left in the half tied the game at 13-13, but Missouri broke things open with a 16-2 run to build a 29-15 lead.

Vanderbilt went 5-of-6 at the foul line in the final 2:39 of the half to keep the deficit from becoming even larger.

The game featured the SEC’s top two scorers — Vanderbilt’s Foggie (who entered the night averaging 19.5 points per game) and Missouri’s Kulas (18.8).

Entering the game, Vanderbilt was shooting 42.2 percent from 3-point range for the season, which ranked first in the conference and second in the nation.